14-4 BELIQULE AQUITAOT(LE. 



and induced him to style it rather "a kind of ox having the shape of a deer;" 

 but the mention of this attribute, peculiarly distinctive of the Reindeer among 

 other varieties of the genus, establishes the reality of his description, and proves 

 that that animal alone could have been intended. 



That such is the case, were other evidence wanting, the recent discoveries in 

 Dordogne, relics of an anterior age, I think conclusively prove conclusively, 

 even without the important evidence of the name incidentally quoted by Caesar, 

 and preserved to our day in the Teutonic Renn-Thier, the French Renne, our own 

 Reindeer, and almost literally in the Spanish Reno. The etymology of the name 

 as given by Mr. Dawkins, unlike many fanciful etymologies of the present day, 

 has an obvious air of correctness. I might suggest, however, that the term 

 originated not in the absolute powers of speed, relatively considered, but rather 

 in the far-running tendencies of the animal. Gregarious in their habits, and by 

 nature migratory, a herd, when once fairly alarmed, seeks instinctively a distant 

 place of refuge. This is characteristic at least of the American Reindeer ; and I 

 have myself in days of yore, while hunting in the remote interior of British 

 Columbia, pursued a retreating herd, affrighted by the recent attack of a 

 Carcajou*, more than a hard day's march on the snowshoe a persistent retreat, 

 unlike the capricious flight of other varieties of the genus. 



"With reference to Notes 9 and 10, page 56. "We have, I think, notable proof 

 of the Reindeer having retreated northward by gradual stages in the fact that, 

 evidence being adduced of their having existed in Dordogne at an earlier day, 

 they were not found south of the Hercynian forest at the period when Caesar wrote. 

 Their residence in Dordogne, too, was doubtless permanent [see M. Lartet's Note A, 

 further on], as far as the idea of permanency can be attached to these animals, 

 whose habits, from known natural causes, are essentially migratory. Thus the 

 low swampy lands around Hudson's Bay and towards Lake Winipic, abounding in 

 lichens for their winter sustenance, and at that season their natural habitat, are 

 quite unfitted for their summer residence, owing to innumerable flies. Hence 

 their periodical migration towards the snows of Labrador on the one hand, and 

 towards the Arctic confines on the other. Even in a domesticated state, among 

 the Laplanders &c., this exigency of their nature has to be sedulously attended 

 to. It was to this cause that the failure of Lord Selkirk's experiment t, to which 



* The Wolverine (Taxus gulo of Cuvier), a formidable enemy to the Keindeer, and indeed a general 

 mischief-maker. 



t The Earl of Selkirk selected for his nursery the spot at the effluence of Lake Winipic, known as the 



